ASUS A8V Deluxe Overclocking Guide -- Discussion

i dont use either the promise or via and i cant get past 240 fsb on my water chilled fx-53 no matter what the multi or htt multi.
mem timings havent had an effect either any sudgestions? 1009_04 bios at 1.75 vcore

James:

Use The Omega Drivers if you have an ATi Video card. The ATi Catalyst's can act funny at times. You can find them at : www.omegadrivers.net.

Bla:
What do you mean by not using either the Promise or VIA ports? Do you have an IDE Drive? As Sentinel was saying, if an IDE is your boot drive try lowering your HTT to 4x. I mean choose hypertransport frequency to be 800MHz. (200 x 4) and see if that helps.

I fixed my problem with the A8V deluxe and Radeon 9800 PRO problem, details here: http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=3238741&postcount=48

Note - I'm not overclocking anything yet. Just trying to get this thing running stable before I try overclocking.

Since the last update, I updated to the latest beta bios, 1009.004.
That didn't help.

***So, I changed the AGP voltage from AUTO/1.5 volts to 1.6 volts. That did the trick.***

It's rock solid now. No more losing video signal in the middle of games, no more crashing to the desktop, no more freeze and automatic reboot.

My AGP settings in bios are now:
Primary Graphics Adapter = AGP
Search for MDA Resources = No
VLink 8X Supported = Enabled
AGP Mode = AGP 8X
AGP Fast Write = Disabled
Graphics Aperature Size = 128MB
AGP 3.0 Calibration Cycle = Disabled
DBI Output for AGP Trans = Disabled
and
AGP voltage = 1.6 volts

Good news indeed!
I'm making a special "resolved issues" post in the OC Guide. Thanks for the input.

No promise or Via

I used U160 Scsi on an adaptec pci card, so i dont have ata or sata drives hooked up, either way i have tried the lower hyper multis.

Did you consider that to be a problem? Why don't you try your buddy's SATA/IDE HDD. This would really nail it down.

I haven't been able to get back with my OC results because even though my system is up and running I haven't had time to let it rip, or game on it, or even install Ghost so I can backup my partition before I go mess with it, heh.

The install was silky smooth tho (brand new install) and getting it up and running with the Promise controller from the begining was no problem at all. My board also had 1007 already on it so it didn't need a flash to recognize the Winchester, I think I'll leave it at that 'till 1009 comes outta beta.

Temps seemed good though AS hasn't set in yet and I only glanced at 'em a couple of times (with the AC on at one point and with the AC off later so hard to compare much of anything). Results will be forthcoming though, I'll go detail the specs on my sig once I'm done tinkering.

Just wanted to say how pleased I was with the ease of install really. My only complaint so far would be the side-facing floppy connector...

Glad to know its up and running. Hope you hit a good 400MHz OC.

Post here with your results. I have updated the sticky so look in there for some more info.

Good Luck man!

Well it seems like the longer I have this board the more problems I have with it, I am going to go back to the via 4.43 drivers that I used from the Asus website since I seamed to be running trouble free with them. I'll post back later with the results.

Beanster said:

Well it seems like the longer I have this board the more problems I have with it, I am going to go back to the via 4.43 drivers that I used from the Asus website since I seamed to be running trouble free with them. I'll post back later with the results.

Click to expand...

I used the ones on my CD for my setup. There were two newer versions available at VIA's site, one was very very recent and the only changes on it were support added for new boards I believe, nothing pertaining to KT800 Pro.

The other 4in1 available from VIA that was newer than the ASUS CD one just contained some minor letter version change and didn't install the AGP driver by default (from what I read) due to some Microsoft recommendation about using theirs instead... I had heard from other users that VIA's driver was fine so I didn't pay that 4in1 set any attention.

Before I forget, I also ran into one tiny hitch while performing my install, thought I should mention it. It's not particular to the board but to Windows, anyway... If you install Windows with a Zip drive or even an internal USB CF/SD card reader (mine hooks up to a USB header) the drive letters get flip-flopped and you end up with a main drive that isn't C:.

I ended up with a system drive with letter I:, it didn't seem to cause any problems for Windows itself but I wanted to avoid anything other than C: in case it'd cause problems with any programs in the future...

I had to re-install Windows (hadn't done anything to it since I noticed it fast so no biggie) with the CF/SD reader unplugged to avoid this since the Knowledge Base didn't seem to recommend changing the boot drive letter assigment. Hooked up the reader afterwards with no issues.

Its either the via's or the last cats I downloaded. I think it may be the cats, a little time will tell. I am going to find some omegas and give them a shot. It could be a culmination of things, I have done quite a bit if changing around in the bios lately, so I cleared the cmos and started fresh @ stock speeds, just at 1T command rate. Once I get a stable OS then I will work on overclocking again, since I know it will do 2.65 effectively.

I don't want to sound discouraging but 2.65 for a NewCastle on air is very optimistic.
2.6 is the max you may hit IMHO. NC's don't run as cool as Winchesters and A64's in general don't like hig VCore.

Good Luck though and hope you hit 2.65!

Thanks for your guide. Can you recommend a vendor so that I can get a late model of this board?

Thanks.

I see that Newegg are out of stock. You can wait for Newegg or you can get a board from kc-computers or Monarch Computers. More expensive at KC but they have excellent service. I'm building another rig for my lab and I'll get it from KC.

KC: Owners name is Kevin Chalker.
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1595.html

MONARCH:
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2079.html

Hope this helps!

Thanks a bunch. I am looking upgrading from the fast but old nf-7s in my signature and want to use the

Antec True Control 550,
Corsair PC3200LL TwinX v1.1 BH-5
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro,
Lian-Li PC-60USB Case

with this new board. Is there a BIOS config sticky somewhere for ASUS A8V-Deluxe setup?

I read some posts about BH-5 problems and wonder if this "good old RAM" might be a problem?

The BH-5 is useless on this board. You can't really realize the amazing potential of the BH-5 because it is not possible to exceed 3.0V even with volt-mods. I'd suggest something with tight timings, i.e 2-2-x-x.

What specific BIOS settings are you looking for?
I have updated the main OC Guide.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=332591

Everything else looks good.

New BIOS available (1009.007), preliminary results aren't good. (CMOS clear/battery removal required, according to a post on a Dutch forum)

I heard about that from Xtremesys .
I'll wait for a bit longer untill a clear picture emerges.
Thanks anyway!

RDRASH....this is for you (In response to your pm)

RDRASH:

Your pm's are off and so are e-mails


Man, you should have done a bit of research on this. I got my MoBo in September and specifically asked for a Rev 2.00. Sometimes retailers screw you over by passing on a rev 1.02 if you don't specifically ask for a Rev 2.00.

BTW are you sure its a Rev 1.02?? Check the pictures section of my OC Guide (Link in my sig). It tells you where to look for the factory stamp.

What processor do you have? If it is a 130nm Newcastle, it is perfectly fine to flash to the 1005.002 BIOS.

Stability problems abound with the newer Winchesters. With older NC's you don't have much to worry. Post your system specs (In the discussion thread) according to the format in the "A8V Case Files" section of my OC Guide and I'll keep it updated if you have any problems.

Good Luck!

Noticed that 1009 went live (out of beta and on the official download site) shortly before the new year, anyone got any experience and/or comments on it yet? I'll probably go load it up soon...